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Got busy. And the net was down whole night.
So here I am copy-pasting an earlier post.
If a piece is not worth rereading it is not worth reading.
This somehow recalls a Mark Twain Quote:
"He who doesn't read is no better than one who can't"
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"...Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection..."
...............Rabindranath Tagore
*******************************************************************************************
I woke up ringing with the Tagore lines above that we had to mug up for our Matriculation Exams...these things happen.
I was pleased that I got the blog-title for today: "Perfection"
As I said many times earlier, getting a snappy title is half the battle...thoughts and words gather throughout the day.
And my son asked me to do him a favor (guys these days are adepts at euphemisms):
I had to travel all the way to the Greenlands Axis Bank and get him his Bank Statement for the past 12 months (these hi-fi Banks don't give you good old Pass-Books if you sign in for online banking and go broke paying credit card bills).
As I entered the Flashy Bank there was a long queue (Monday yesterday was a Bank Holiday here for Telugu New Year's Day). But the Dame manning the Counter was courteous for this Senior Citizen and said that the System (another euphemism for the snazzy thing) has gone slow, so, why not sit down for half an hour.
That was fine with me to whom Time has come to a standstill after retirement.
A minute later, a young geek passed by wearing a black T-Shirt with a white-painted slogan on it (as you know I have a weakness for T-Shirt slogans and got into trouble a couple of times...).
This one read loudly:
========================================================================
Got busy. And the net was down whole night.
So here I am copy-pasting an earlier post.
If a piece is not worth rereading it is not worth reading.
This somehow recalls a Mark Twain Quote:
"He who doesn't read is no better than one who can't"
***********************************************************************
"...Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection..."
...............Rabindranath Tagore
*******************************************************************************************
I woke up ringing with the Tagore lines above that we had to mug up for our Matriculation Exams...these things happen.
I was pleased that I got the blog-title for today: "Perfection"
As I said many times earlier, getting a snappy title is half the battle...thoughts and words gather throughout the day.
And my son asked me to do him a favor (guys these days are adepts at euphemisms):
I had to travel all the way to the Greenlands Axis Bank and get him his Bank Statement for the past 12 months (these hi-fi Banks don't give you good old Pass-Books if you sign in for online banking and go broke paying credit card bills).
As I entered the Flashy Bank there was a long queue (Monday yesterday was a Bank Holiday here for Telugu New Year's Day). But the Dame manning the Counter was courteous for this Senior Citizen and said that the System (another euphemism for the snazzy thing) has gone slow, so, why not sit down for half an hour.
That was fine with me to whom Time has come to a standstill after retirement.
A minute later, a young geek passed by wearing a black T-Shirt with a white-painted slogan on it (as you know I have a weakness for T-Shirt slogans and got into trouble a couple of times...).
This one read loudly:
Nobody is Perfect
And
I am Nobody
All at once my blog-title changed to: "Nobody"
**************************************************************************************************
This guy is the 3rd Nobody to have crossed my path.
The first one was of course the Hero of the Tall Tale told by my Father when I was a kid: Ulysses using "Nobody" as his alias rather cleverly to escape from the clutches of Cyclops.
The second is very recent:
A few months back I got a surprise gift from Flipkart sent by Pratik: a lovely book I read in one sitting (lying).
It is titled: "The Diary of a Nobody"
It was first published in book form in 1892 and has never been out of print!
And a period piece of the Victorian Era laced with humor (it first appeared in Punch in serial form).
**************************************************************************************************
Well, sorry to say, I am not a "Nobody" and so as imperfect as you are (none of you, I am sure, is a Nobody).
The other day I was browsing my Obituary File that my son retrieved and handed me (the one that had a dozen pieces by my students on my 60th Birthday long long ago).
There were indeed a couple of words dropped: 'perfect' and 'ideal'; but the Occasion rather demanded it and they can be glossed over as quid pro quo for hilarious Recos (there were none by lady-students, quite understandably).
This Striving for Perfection which the Poet mentions is, I think, a symptom of delayed childhood, like measles and whooping cough so prevalent during our time.
I distinctly recall that I considered my Father a Personification (he taught us this Figure of Speech, giving "Death, be not Proud" as a canonical example) of Perfection till I discovered that he couldn't solve a Quadratic Equation.
I then lived under my Shakespeare Uncle for a year and considered him perfect since he could quote the crazy Hamlet Soliloquies verbatim (I verified later on if he was fibbing).
Till he scolded me loudly in public for sneezing when the rickshaw carrying his darling daughter to the Railway Station was about to take off (he was as superstitious as his Calpurnia).
I then lived for 2 years with my MD Physician Uncle who was rated next only to Hippocrates in his medical prowess but otherwise he had no fancy claims of Perfection...he was a believer in Tulsidas's sound ideas about how to treat drums, harijans, cattle and women...
I then went to KGP and thought I met the Epitome of Perfection, SDM, till one evening he broke down in front of clueless me for not being invited to a silly Get-Together by Eminent Teachers of Bengal.
By then I was 30 and gave up looking for Perfection in souls brought forth by wombs (or even petri dishes).
I was never an aspirant of the Perfect Son, Husband, Father or Father-in-Law since the affected parties loudly dispute it (I fancy I am a Perfect Gran'pa though...Ishani has still to speak up).
Still, once in a while, at bed time, I worry that I need not have done what I did, or said what I said, or thought what I thought.
And I ask myself why, with one foot out of the grave, I keep worrying...
To this question, I have no answer....
And
I am Nobody
All at once my blog-title changed to: "Nobody"
**************************************************************************************************
This guy is the 3rd Nobody to have crossed my path.
The first one was of course the Hero of the Tall Tale told by my Father when I was a kid: Ulysses using "Nobody" as his alias rather cleverly to escape from the clutches of Cyclops.
The second is very recent:
A few months back I got a surprise gift from Flipkart sent by Pratik: a lovely book I read in one sitting (lying).
It is titled: "The Diary of a Nobody"
It was first published in book form in 1892 and has never been out of print!
And a period piece of the Victorian Era laced with humor (it first appeared in Punch in serial form).
**************************************************************************************************
Well, sorry to say, I am not a "Nobody" and so as imperfect as you are (none of you, I am sure, is a Nobody).
The other day I was browsing my Obituary File that my son retrieved and handed me (the one that had a dozen pieces by my students on my 60th Birthday long long ago).
There were indeed a couple of words dropped: 'perfect' and 'ideal'; but the Occasion rather demanded it and they can be glossed over as quid pro quo for hilarious Recos (there were none by lady-students, quite understandably).
This Striving for Perfection which the Poet mentions is, I think, a symptom of delayed childhood, like measles and whooping cough so prevalent during our time.
I distinctly recall that I considered my Father a Personification (he taught us this Figure of Speech, giving "Death, be not Proud" as a canonical example) of Perfection till I discovered that he couldn't solve a Quadratic Equation.
I then lived under my Shakespeare Uncle for a year and considered him perfect since he could quote the crazy Hamlet Soliloquies verbatim (I verified later on if he was fibbing).
Till he scolded me loudly in public for sneezing when the rickshaw carrying his darling daughter to the Railway Station was about to take off (he was as superstitious as his Calpurnia).
I then lived for 2 years with my MD Physician Uncle who was rated next only to Hippocrates in his medical prowess but otherwise he had no fancy claims of Perfection...he was a believer in Tulsidas's sound ideas about how to treat drums, harijans, cattle and women...
I then went to KGP and thought I met the Epitome of Perfection, SDM, till one evening he broke down in front of clueless me for not being invited to a silly Get-Together by Eminent Teachers of Bengal.
By then I was 30 and gave up looking for Perfection in souls brought forth by wombs (or even petri dishes).
I was never an aspirant of the Perfect Son, Husband, Father or Father-in-Law since the affected parties loudly dispute it (I fancy I am a Perfect Gran'pa though...Ishani has still to speak up).
Still, once in a while, at bed time, I worry that I need not have done what I did, or said what I said, or thought what I thought.
And I ask myself why, with one foot out of the grave, I keep worrying...
To this question, I have no answer....
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